Lesson One: Finding Balance and Your “Sweet Spot”

This is the “ridiculously simple” part of martial-arts swimming, at least for some athletes. You may even be tempted to skip this lesson. Don’t! If you have human DNA—even if you’ve already swum in the Olympics—you can still improve your balance, and as it improves you’ll use less energy at any speed.

If, on the other hand, every stroke you’ve ever taken has been a frustrating struggle, if you’re toast after two laps, if you always feel as if your toenails are in danger of scraping the pool bottom, Lesson One can give you an unprecedented feeling of basically being able to just lie there, kicking gently, while tension and discomfort melt away. Once you have that, you’ll immediately swim with far more ease, and the rest of the lessons will go much more smoothly.

HEAD FIRST?

In watching underwater video of thousands of “human swimmers” over the years, what I notice first is how completely their arms and legs are occupied with trying not to sink. They may think what they’re doing is “stroking,” but virtually none of their energy is producing propulsion. Instead, most of it goes into fighting that sinking feeling. Until you learn to balance effortlessly without your arms helping, it is simply impossible to drill or stroke efficiently. Thus, your first step is to get the water to support you without help from your arms. In “head-lead” drills, because you’re unable to use your arms for support, you’ll learn to balance your body entirely through proper head position and weight distribution.

FOUR SIMPLE SECRETS TO SUCCESS

1. As you practice, imagine being towed by a line attached to the top of your head. Keep your head-spine line long and straight.

2. Practice ease. Move as quietly and economically as you can, trying not to disturb the water. Strive for an almost Zen-like sensation of stillness.

3. Kick silently and gently with a long, straight, supple leg. Keep your feet inside your body’s wake, or “shadow.” If you feel slow, don’t kick harder; instead, try to reduce resistance by improving your balance and alignment.

4. Most important, when practicing Lesson One for the first time, use a shallow pool section, where you can stand up at any time. When doing head-lead drills, especially if you have a weak kick, even 25 yards can be tiring. Until you can do just five or ten yards effortlessly, don’t go farther. (Backyard and motel pools are often perfect for Lesson One practice!) If you feel tired or are working too hard, don’t push on. Instead, stand up, take a few deep breaths, and relax before resuming.

DRILL 1: BASIC BALANCE ON YOUR BACK

Why We Do It: This is the easiest way to relax and enjoy the support of the water. You don’t have to worry about breathing, so you can just lie there and experience balance. Effortlessness and stability are the key sensations of balance; learn them here then maintain in other positions.

Follow This Sequence (Kicking Gently at Each Step)

1. Hide your head. Your face should be parallel to the surface, with water wetting the top of your forehead, the bottom of your chin, and the corners of your goggles. Tuck your chin slightly to keep your head aligned. If other swimmers splash waves in your face, you can minimize this distraction by wearing nose-clips. Spend five to ten minutes simply getting your head position right or have a partner check the illustration and help. Patiently practice until it feels more natural and you’re comfortable with the water that close. In every subsequent drill, hide your head before doing anything else.

2. Make a “hull shape” with your back. It’s harder to balance with your shoulders back and your chest thrust forward. Round your shoulders slightly and shape your back like the hull of a boat. Keep your shoulders in this neutral position for all balance drills.

3. Press your “buoy.” You achieve balance by “lying on your lungs,” which are the most buoyant part of your body. Keeping your head hidden and your torso hull-shaped, lean on your upper back until your hips feel light. When you’re balanced, you’ll show a “dry patch of thigh” on each kick. But don’t let your kick become splashy; your knees and toes should just ruffle the surface. In subsequent drills, “lie on your lungs” in the same way.

4. Just lie there. The true test of balance is being able to do nothingwith your arms. If you need to brace yourself or scull with them, you aren’t balanced. When you are really supported by the water, you can use your arms just to help shape yourself into a torpedo. 

5. Time to practice. Limit repeats to 25 yards or less. As soon as you begin losing your sense of ease and relaxation, rest until you regain it.

Special Help for “Sinkers”

Athletes who are lean, densely muscled, or long-legged (and particularly those with two or more of these traits) commonly find that no amount of position adjusting allows them to achieve real comfort in the nose-up balance drills (Drills 1 through 3). These drills are important in teaching the recovery position you’ll use between cycles of the “switch” drills in Lessons Three, Four, and Five, but you’ll learn the sense of balance you’ll use while swimming the whole stroke in nose-down positions in Drill 4 and beyond.

Rather than struggle to float those “heavy” legs, I recommend that you ask a friend or swim partner to help you as you learn balance drills initially. In the Total Immersion “buddy system,” your partner can tow gently from your head or shoulders in Drills 1 and 2, and from your extended hand in Drill 3. As your partner tows, put your focus entirely on relaxing; using a gentle, compact kick; slipping through the smallest “hole” in the water; and memorizing the sense of easy support you gain.

After providing some momentum, your partner can release you and continue walking backward in front, ready to resume towing if he or she sees you begin to struggle. Your partner’s “draft” should make it a bit easier for you to continue independently. You focus on feeling—and kicking—the same as when you were being towed. Repeat tow-and-release several times, trying to sustain independent momentum, for just a bit longer each time. (The “buddy system” for learning balance and other skills is illustrated in detail in the Freestyle Made Easy DVD/video described in the appendix.) 

In general, “sinkers” struggle more with the first three drills, so my advice is not to endure frustration while trying endlessly to master them. Do them expeditiously and with a degree of patience to learn as much as a reasonable effort with allow, then move on to Drill 4, Skating. This is the step where sinkers begin to understand how balance should feel. You can also use fins for solo practice, as detailed in the box at the end of this lesson.

Focus mainly on the sense of stillness produced when you can just lie there, kicking gently, and let the water do the work. Imagine being so stable that you could carry a champagne glass on your forehead. This feeling is a hallmark of balance! Keep it as you progress to other balance drills.

DRILL 2: FIND YOUR “SWEET SPOT”

Why We Do It: You’ll swim mainly on your side and start and finish every drill on your side, but “side balance” is almost never exactly on the side. The Sweet Spot is where you’ll find true equilibrium and balance and is influenced by your body type. If you’re lean or densely muscled, side balance will probably be almost on your back. Finding your Sweet Spot is critical because you’ll start and finish every drill here. When you master Sweet Spot, you’ll drill with ease and fluency; if you don’t take time to master it, you’ll struggle instead.

Follow This Sequence

1. Start as in Drill 1, palms at your side and kicking gently. Remain on your back until you check your head position and feel effortlessly balanced.

2. Without moving your head, roll just enough for the knuckles of one hand to barely clear the water. Your goal is to find a position where one arm is dry from shoulder to knuckles and you’re just as comfortable as you were on your back. If you feel any discomfort,

return to your back and try again with less rotation.

3. Check that your head is still positioned as in Drill 1, with the water at the corners of your goggles.

4. Watch for signs of discomfort: lifting the head, craning the neck, arching the back, helping with the lower arm. If you feel any tension, return to your back and start over with less rotation.

5. Once you feel at home in Sweet Spot, focus on staying tall and slipping through a small hole in the water, then on making stillness, quiet, and effortlessness feel natural.

6. Repeat on your other side. You may feel more comfortable on one side than the other. I call this having a “chocolate” (better balance) and “vanilla” side. Balance improvements on your vanilla side will usually bring greater dividends. Alternate one length or minute on one side with a similar distance or time on the other side.

7. When you begin to feel comfortable on each side, begin practicing Active Balance. Kick easily on one side for three yoga breaths, then roll gently to show the other arm for three breaths. The two key skills in Active Balance are: (1) maintain constant equilibrium as you roll, and (2) use effortless weight shifts to initiate body roll. Roll without using your arms, without kicking harder, and without disturbing the water. Keep your head in a steady position, with water at the corners of your goggles as you roll from side to side, as if carrying a champagne glass on your forehead.

Your most important task here is to learn the right way—patiently and mindfully—to practice all skill drills. Give yourself unlimited time to acquire effortless ease. You are not on a schedule to advance to Lesson Two. If you cultivate these attitudes and habits in Lesson One, your skills will be stronger and sounder at each subsequent stage:

Kicking, Fins, Drilling, and Swimming: The Whole Story

Why do I go backward when kicking and drilling? Inflexible ankles are the most common cause and the “adult-onset” swimmer is the classic case. We all lose flexibility as we age (unless you follow a dedicated stretching or yoga program), and if you didn’t start swimming young you may spend twenty to forty years gradually losing ankle flexibility. Years of running usually accelerates the stiffening. If you started swimming young and continued, that’s usually sufficient to maintain ankle flexibility.

The second cause is simple lack of coordination. The correct flutter-kicking action is counterintuitive. Your other kicking experiences (soccer balls, tires, your kid brother) teach you to kick with about 90 degrees of knee flexion. But an efficient flutter kick uses only about 30 degrees; the kick happens mostly from the hip flexor and quadriceps. Kids learn it fairly spontaneously; the adult-onset swimmer often has to consciously unlearn the other kicking habits in order to learn the right way.

How do I fix it? Four ways have proven to work best:

VERTICAL KICKING. This won’t do much for flexibility but it is effective for learning coordination. Float vertically with arms folded across your chest, mouth just above the water, as shown in the illustration. If you feel yourself sinking, tuck a pull buoy under each armpit, or hug a kickboard to your chest. Focus on keeping a long line from hip to toes as you kick. Your leg should be long and supple, never rigid. Using the muscles at the top of your thigh, move your whole leg like a pendulum. (A good exercise for the true beginner is simply to sit on the edge of the pool with your legs dangling in the water and try to move the water solidly back and forth with an almost-straight leg. Try to use ankle flexion and extension to move the water forward and back. Try “stirring” the water with one foot to develop a bit more awareness of how to feel the water with your feet.) Practice vertical kicking for several periods of fifteen or more seconds, resting for a similar amount of time. Then kick with the same feeling in the side position below. 

TOWING. The TI “buddy system” of tow-and-release described on page 113 can also be helpful in correcting inefficient habits. The least effective (but most instinctive) response to a nonpropulsive kick is to kick harder. While being towed by a partner, it’s much easier to focus on kicking gently; maintaining a long, supple line from hip to toes; and keeping your feet inside your torso’s “shadow.” After release, keep your kick as it was while being towed. Towing and Vertical Kicking are illustrated in the Freestyle Made Easy DVD/video. 

SIDE KICKING. This can help you with both coordination and flexibility and is one more benefit to practicing TI drills. Each drill in our sequence starts and finishes in Sweet Spot. Any time you’re kicking on your side, you’re a lot more likely to use the 30-degree flexion kick. Kicking on your stomach—as with a kickboard—makes it far more likely that you’ll do the bicycling kick, because gravity encourages it. On your side, because your knees don’t flex in the direction gravity is working, you’re far less likely to “bicycle.” 

STRETCHING. This won’t do anything for coordination. It may improve the range of motion in your ankles moderately. It won’t suddenly turn you into a fast, easy kicker. 

Will fins help? The primary benefit of fins is that the blade will flex easily, compensating for the ankle that won’t. In order for the kick to be propulsive,  something has to flex, in order to move the water, similar to the pitched blades of a propellor. When your ankle refuses, it’s only natural for your knee to substitute. That only makes the problem worse. First, because a right-angle knee causes your lower leg to protrude from your slipstream— turning the leg into another source of drag. That’s why you don’t move forward. Second, it triggers the pawing action of a runner’s kick. That causes you to go backward. With fins on your feet—and your body on its side—pretty soon you’re helping both flexibility and coordination.

Should I use fins in drills? The Sweet Spot pause in every TI drill helps your ease and coordination. Good. But if you have a poor kick, each time you return to Sweet Spot, your body may stop moving. Bad. If your body comes to halt after each cycle, you end up lurching down the pool, spending energy trying to overcome inertia rather than efficiently conserving momentum. So a reasonable kick is essential to efficient drill practice. And because the main point of drills is to teach you ease and economy, it really is an enormous benefit if using fins allows you to practice ease as you drill.

But I recommend that you try to complete Lesson One without fins. That helps to ensure that you’re using the fins mainly to help conserve momentum, not to mask your balance problem. And if you do use fins while practicing drills, let them do the work. Keep your legs long and supple and relaxed. Kick as gently as possible, so the fins don’t overwhelm the core-generated movement you’re trying to learn.

Should I use fins while swimming? Unless your goal is to swim short distances fast, I advocate a non-overt kick—i.e., one you’re hardly aware of. If your drills teach you balance, it should be much easier to just let your legs follow your core body. I don’t encourage swimmers to use fins very often while swimming. It tends to encourage you to overkick, and you can easily lose your feel for balance, fluency, and for swimming with a seamless whole-body harmony. So … do use fins if they contribute dramatically to your ease while drilling. But don’t be reluctant to try some drilling without them. And take the fins off when you start swimming.

• Practice each drill with no set time limit or number of repetitions in mind.

• Stay with it until it becomes effortless.

• Then continue a bit longer until you are “bored” (you can do it without mental effort).

• Only then should you progress to the next drill or skill.

Make a commitment to avoid “practicing struggle” at any stage. Any time you feel yourself losing control, stop and rest, regroup at the prior drill or skill, or do both. If you don’t, you’ll simply end up imprinting struggle in your muscle memory and your body will naturally revert to inefficient patterns whenever you get a bit tired.

A comprehensive series for Lesson One practice is 25 yards on your back, 25 on your right side, 25 on your left side, and 25 of Active Balance. Rest for three to five yoga breaths after each 25. As your Sweet Spot balance improves, you can do Drill 1 less often, focusing your practice on side balance and active balance. As you progress to other drills, a five- to ten-minute tune-in with your Sweet Spot before tackling more advanced drills will always be beneficial.